Category Archives: K-5

I finally got around to trying this Mother’s Day idea this year – with a bit of green screen magic mixed in. My GT first graders have been researching different countries, so they each made a Mother’s Day video for their moms incorporating some of their research. After talking about perspective, and what they thought their moms would like to see in each country, they selected some highlights from their library books. Then they made short videos “congratulating” their moms on winning trips to their respective countries. We used some Creative Commons images and videos from Pixabay and Discovery Ed to create their final “Winning” montages. You can click on the link below to see an example. (Note: The video quality is a bit off because the young lady was wearing a bluish-green shirt that day – a little difficult to balance with our green screen program without making her a talking head!)

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Most of my 2nd graders finished up their Mother’s Day Cards yesterday. You may remember that I posted the idea of asking the students to design floorplans for Dream Homes for their moms. I wasn’t sure exactly how they would be presented when I wrote that post, so this is the design we ended up with. It is basically two pieces of cardstock folded “hamburger” style. For the inside one, we cut a tab to make a pop-up card. The pop-up was the design for the outside of the home. The top flap of this card was glued to the inside of the top flap of the other card. Then we glued the floor plans to the back of the inside card and the inside of the back card.

Okay, that sounds confusing. Maybe pics will help? Here are examples of 2 different student cards (Student 1 chose to make up her own haiku after learning about them earlier this year!):

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As regular readers know, I share a lot of freebies on this blog. Usually, if I’ve made a lesson or activity, I post it here for anyone to download. However, I sometimes create collections of my work and sell it on Teachers Pay Teachers. My “Undercover Robots – Spy School” packet is one of those collections. I developed it over two summers of doing Undercover Robots Camp using the Dash robots from Wonder Workshop. This packet is a 38 page PDF that contains activities that can be used in an after-school or summer camp with robots that can be controlled by mobile devices. It is designed for use with a camp that has 6 teams of students (2 or 3 to a team) from ages 8-11. The Dash and Dot robots from Wonder Workshop are perfect for this camp, but other robots could be used instead. There are 10 missions included in this packet with unique puzzles for each team. (Note: Most of the missions depend on using a vinyl map of the world on the floor. I have a link to the one I purchased from Amazon in my packet, but you can also DIY if necessary.)

I’ve found that younger students love to get involved in stories around these robots. There are ample opportunities for creativity (you should see some of their spy outfits!), and problem-solving as they work on the puzzles I provide as well as the programming. I give some ideas for differentiation in the packet as well.

I have other curriculum that I am still testing out, but will post as soon as I work out the kinks and get it organized.

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Since my 2nd graders are studying structures right now, it seems only right that they should design one of their own. With Mother’s Day coming up, I thought I could make their designs seem more relevant if they had a “client” in mind. I keep talking about the importance of empathy in Design Thinking, and they seem to have a difficult time empathizing with fictional characters, so I chose someone they might know a bit more.

We started by brainstorming things that their moms like. One hand immediately went up. “Facebook,” the student declared. LOL, I thought, hoping this wasn’t about to become one of those situations where the students volunteered more information than needed to be shared in a public school setting… My own daughter would probably respond, “Playing Sudoku on her iPad while she watches ‘Call the Midwife.'”

Fortunately, the rest of the responses were pretty standard. “Peace and quiet” seemed pretty popular, as did “sleep” and “me.” Some of the students suggested they also put things that their moms don’t like, such as shoes on the floor, to help them with their later designs.

After the students brainstormed decent lists, I showed them an example of a house floorplan. We talked about what unique rooms we could add to customize a house for their mom. “For example, you might like basketball so an indoor basketball court would be in your dream home. But what would be in your mom’s?”

The floorplans are just rough drafts at the moment, but you can see a couple of examples below. I’m still debating what the final product will look like. Draw the outside of the house and do a green screen video? Make a card with the house facade on the outside and the floorplan on the inside? I think the moms will get a kick out of what their children think they value no matter what the medium of delivery, but I’d be happy to take any of your suggestions in the comments below!

My 2nd graders worked on using “Combine” and “Put to Another Use” this week. For “Combine,” they invented something new with a clock and a four-leaf-clover. (I love how the clock hands will pinch you if you aren’t wearing green!) The “Put to Another Use” assignment asked the students to think of another way to use a Leprechaun hat.

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My daughter (15) and I love to play word games. A couple of years ago, she received a game called, “Linkee” for Christmas. “Linkee” has cards that give four trivia questions. After answering the four questions, players try to figure out what the answers all have in common. When they figure it out, they shout, “Linkee!” If they are right, they win the card, which has a letter on the back. The first person to earn all of the letters that spell “Linkee,” wins.

We love the game (even though no one else will play with us). However, a lot of the references are a bit too difficult for elementary aged kids. You can imagine my delight, then, when I discovered there is another version of “Linkee” specifically designed for younger children. “Dinkee” is for ages 8 and up. If you want to get a sense of the game, you can visit this site, where there are sample cards as well as a free downloadable version.

I played “Dinkee” with my eighteen 2nd grade students yesterday, and they loved it. They worked as tables to try to earn the cards, and it seemed the only regret was that we didn’t have time to finish the game. I’ll definitely be adding this to my list of recommended games for kids.

If you question the value of a game like this in school, then you might want to read this article, which gives a pretty compelling argument about the benefits of making connections.

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My 2nd graders study structures, and our 2nd semester is spent on man-made structures. We start with bridges, and I usually challenge the students to make bridges out of different types of materials. Even though the activities always seem to engage them, I felt like I wasn’t quite making the lessons meaningful.

This year, I started simple by showing the students a BrainPop video about bridges and using our Depth and Complexity mats to discuss the video. This week, we reviewed a lot of the Language of the Discipline (they particularly like the word, “abutment,” – for obvious reasons), and they remembered quite a few from the video. Then I challenged them to do this activity. The students were good at connecting that their attempts at paper bridges were beam bridges, but they were definitely getting frustrated after about 10 minutes of trying and failing.

At this point, I would usually have shown them the solution on the teacher notes. But this time I asked them to pause while we looked at the shapes interactive on the Building Big site. After the students realized that triangles are the strongest shape, I asked them to apply that knowledge to some new attempts at the paper bridge challenge. I was surprised to see some of the creative options they developed.

I finally did show them the solution on the teacher guide, and they were quick to understand and explain why the change in the paper’s shape made it suddenly stronger, Then they came up with variations and improvements.

This was the first time I really felt like the students weren’t just having fun building bridges, but were actually stepping through learning while developing innovative ideas at the same time. They were explaining how the shapes they tried changed the force on the bridge, as well as how placing the load could affect the outcome.

As I watch many people on Twitter share “STEM” building challenges, I wonder how many, like my first attempts at bridge building lessons, might be more fun than educational. Though fun is great, I feel better now that the students have found a way to make a “bridge” between their enjoyment and their learning.